I never got a chance to say goodbye.
I'd always worried about that happening to me. A friend, a loved one, would get into an accident or sudden emergency and I'd never get the chance to say goodbye. And finally, it happened to me. I lost someone I thought I'd never have to live without, and I didn't get the chance to say goodbye.
I had a bad feeling for days beforehand, like there was some foreboding sense of a disaster coming up, like the one you get when instead of studying for an exam, you stay up until 3 a.m. watching a VH-1 documentary about Ronnie James Dio. You've convinced yourself you can cram three weeks' worth of lectures into a 30-minute cram session, but oh no -- all you're thinking the whole time is how awesome "Holy Diver" is. Now it's time to meet your maker.
That's how I felt that week.
And suddenly, the great lord Xenu took him away from me. He just cut me up and tore him away. My dear friend, with whom I'd shared so many meals and just chewed the fat. Man, we had some good times.
But now, my beloved gall bladder is gone. I wish I knew where he was, but Mount Nittany Medical Center wouldn't let me take him or the bulbous gallstone that had plagued him. It's tragic, really. You live with old Gerry the Gall Bladder your whole life, and after a nice morphine IV and some anesthesia, he's gone forever.
To add insult to injury (literally), it's recently been brought to my attention that gallstones are a delicacy in foreign nations, and that people will pay upwards of $10,000 for their aphrodisiatic qualities. The prescription generic percocets I now have serve as little consolation for the loss of five figures. I'm now considering withholding payment of my medical bills until I get my stone back from Mount Nittany.
They're making money hand over gallstone here, and with stolen property. I might not be so angry if my gallstone was a measly one, but the surgeon informed me that it was roughly the size of a peach pit. That kind of stone is going to command serious dough on the international gallstone market. And great lord god Xenu knows what they'll do with my Reader's Digest-sized gall bladder (surgeon's description, not mine.)
But still, now that old Gerry is gone forever, I have a sense of closure. At first, it was tough. But then I woke up after the surgery to see my friends had brought me Operation, that board game where you remove objects from some poor lunkhead who for some reason has electricity running through his body.
I now realized that I'd never have any more gall bladder problems, and that at least I didn't have to deal with brain freeze, bread in my breadbasket or butterflies in my stomach. Although, a malpractice suit caused by an 8-year-old with underdeveloped motor skills attempting to remove my broken heart would make for some sweet weekend beer money for the next 20 years. I'd also be glad to contribute to Pennsylvania's comparably awful healthcare situation. Of course, I should really reconsider pushing old Larry the Liver so hard now that he has to pick up the slack Gerry left behind. But as far as I know, there's no such thing as a liverstone, so GET THE LEAD OUT, LARRY.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm headed back to Mount Nittany to wangle my way into retrieving that $10,000 gallstone. And my, after all this pontificating, I've got a serious writer's cramp that needs removing. Malpractice, here we come.
Kevin Doran is a senior majoring in media studies and is The Collegian's arts editor. His e-mail address is kad952@psu.edu.
